


Teddy Bears are peace offerings.

by JollyTimeTraveler



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Hannibal is gonna be an awesome dad, Kid Will, Wil is an adorable little kid, maybe little less murder in this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 21:06:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5430809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JollyTimeTraveler/pseuds/JollyTimeTraveler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one thing Hannibal was good at was murder. Maybe children wouldn't be so hard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Teddy Bears are peace offerings.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a side note that this is completely unbeta'd so there will be plenty of typos and errors until I get to fixing them. Sorry about that!

The interview processes that Doctor Lecter went through were long and tedious. Several agencies had turned him away because he was single, but once he twisted "single" into "widower", people were much more accommodating. The current agency had narrowed Hannibal down to three children. He was in the office now with a portly, stern woman.

"We are going to set up small interviews with the children now, Doctor." She said, flipping through one of the files on her desk. 

"Excellent. What is the first one's name?" Hannibal asked her. 

"William Hugh Graham. You can read his file if you'd like. I'll bring him out.” She said, standing up and sliding the file across the desk to him. 

The woman bustled off to fetch the child while Hannibal carefully read through the file. He was immediately intrigued by the boy. 

\----

Will Graham was shaking. 

He was sitting up in a chair that was too tall for him and was kicking his legs in the air, twitching his foot and trying hard to keep himself calm. There were a few other children playing on the floor, playing with toys. Will couldn't bring himself to go and join them. He was getting a visitor today and it scared him. He'd been seen by so many families before but they were always scared off by him. Maybe it was his skinny frame or his piercing gaze or his clothes that were too big or maybe his Asberger’s or maybe it was the way he could read into them. Sometimes he'd forget he was himself and instead he'd imagine himself as the other people. He could tell which families were full of molesters and which ones were full of drug-addicts and which ones were the abusers. He doubted that today would be any different, and it scared him. He felt sick with nerves. All he could think about was getting trapped in an endless loop of ups and downs, hopefulness and despair. He was too young for this. Much too young. 

“Will?”

He jumped, almost throwing himself off the chair. It was the woman that handled most of the paperwork, one of the social workers. 

“Huh?” He managed to squeak out. 

“Someone is here to see you.” She offered him her hand and he slid off the chair, letting her take hold of his hand and lead him away. She opened the door to the office, ushering him inside. 

“Will, this is Doctor Hannibal Lecter. Don't be shy.” Will had hid behind her when he caught sight of Hannibal. She gently pulled him out from behind her, setting him in front of her and making sure he didn't try to hide. 

Will was shaking and he twisted his fingers together, trying not to look up. Hannibal slipped out of his chair to kneel down in front of Will, getting eye level with the boy. 

“Hello William.” Hannibal said, smiling at him. “It's very nice to meet you.” Will fidgeted, hugging himself and shuffling his feet. 

"Will, you two are going to spend some time together. I will be in the other room if either of you need me," she said, patting the top of Will's curly head and stepping out. Hannibal kept his attention on the boy, distracted by how thin he was. 

“I-It's very nice to meet you too.” Will mumbled out, not meeting Hannibal’s gaze. He scuffed his shoe on the carpet, letting silence fall between them. “What kind of doctor are you?” He asked. 

“I am a psychiatrist. I help people whose brains don't work quite right. You can ask me anything you'd like. I want to know about you, too." He smiled and opened his suitcase. "I brought you something. It is a teddy bear."

Will finally looked up, his eyes widening at the sight of the teddy bear. It looked clean and soft and new. And Hannibal had brought it just for Will? Will reached out for the bear, touching the fur, but pulled his hands back, looking down at the floor. 

“I….I like it…” Will said shyly. Hannibal gently pressed the bear into his little arms and Will seized it, hugging it close and pressing his nose into the fur. It smelled lovely. 

“You may keep it, if you like.” Hannibal told him. Will managed a small smile before he hid his face, examining the bear. 

“You help people?” Will asked, talking more to the bear than to Hannibal. 

“Yes, I help people. I listen to them and help them solve their problems. Tell me, Will. What do you like to do?" Hannibal replied, watching Will hug the bear. He smiled to himself, thinking of where that ‘fur’ came from. He had sewn the bear himself. 

"I dunno. I don't do anything." He said, continuing to talk more to the bear. "There isn't much to do here. They have lots of toys and stuff but they're old. Sometimes I imagine who used to own them." 

When Will said he imagined, he meant that he became the old owners. He could practically see what their houses had looked like and what their families were like. Like how he knew that the old train set had been owned by a family of five who had a baby that liked to chew on things and two toddlers that had temper tantrums a lot and a mother and father that had given up trying to control the outbursts and instead let them run their course. Or how he knew that the dolls had belonged to a girl who's parents were drug addicts and sometimes she'd hide under the bed to try and get away from them. Will hated imagining things like that, it made him forget who he was and it gave him a really bad headache. The kind of headache that made it impossible to move. 

"You are a very smart boy from what I have heard about you. Very good marks in class. You're in the first grade, correct?" Hannibal said to him. Will looked up to see him pulling a few pieces of blank paper out of his suitcase along with a new case of colored pencils. "Shall we draw something together?" He stood up, moving to sit in the chair and motioning at Will to join him. 

"Uh huh." Will nodded, shuffling closer. He made sure to keep an arm around the bear, waiting for Hannibal to hand him a piece of paper and a colored pencil. He wouldn't take them himself. “What are we gonna draw?”

"Anything you would like. I think I am going to draw a fish." He slid the blank paper and pencils towards him, and started to draw on his paper, then folded it some, then colored again. 

Testing playfulness, he wouldn't let Will see until it was done.

Will pulled the piece of paper close to him and picked up a blue pencil, very slowly drawing on the paper. He kept looking at Dr Lecter through his curls, suspicious. He decided to draw a clock, though it was a little askew and uneven. He also drew the bear he was holding, scribbling a little unevenly to color it in. 

When Hannibal was done, he held up an origami fish that had red scales and golden fins and blue eyes. 

"Ta da," he said. He gently tugged the top and bottom fin to make the mouth open. Will looked up, his eyes growing big as he looked at the fish.

“Oh wow," He reached out to touch it but pulled his hand back before he did. "How did you do that? It's pretty."

"It is all different foods of the paper. It is all one big piece of paper, just made to look a different way. Would you like to hold it? May I see what you drew?" Hannibal placed the fish in his palm, noticing how he pulled away. He could tell that someone had punished him for taking things in the past. 

Will turned the fish around and around, looking at it from all angles. He giggled when he pulled the fins and watched the mouth open and close. Holding the fish and the bear made Will a little more confident. 

"I drew a clock. See?" He turned the paper around to show Dr Lecter, pointing at the askew clock. Hannibal picked up the drawing, examining it. 

"I love your clock, Will. Is that your new bear?" He made a mental note of how skewed the clock was, even for a young child's drawing. "May I keep it? You may keep the fish."

Will’s eyes lit up at the prospect of keeping the fish. 

"Really? That's a good trade." Will looked so excited over the paper fish. He turned to the bear, showing it the way the fish's mouth opened and closed. "Look! It moves!"

The woman from before knocked on the door, coming back inside. Hannibal looked over and her and smiled. 

"Thank you for allowing me to meet William." He said to her. 

"Thank you, Doctor Lecter. Are you ready to see the next child?" She asked, beginning to herd Will out of the chair and toward the door. 

"I do not think that will be necessary." Hannibal replied, placing the drawing that Will had made in his suitcase. 

"I'm sorry...?" The woman stopped, staring at Hannibal in confusion. Will was holding the fish and the bear, looking from the woman to Hannibal and back, trying to understand. 

"I will sign his papers now, please." Hannibal said with a smile. The fish fell out of Will’s hand and he clung to the bear as though someone was trying to take it away from him.


End file.
